


go with your two feet bare

by Anonymous



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Gen, I mean SO slow, Novelization, Stormcloak critical, a little empire critical but not as much, author does not research or care about Lore, author likes to justify game mechanics in-fic, if i actually get that far, might go AU at some point, no plot just vibes, please do not expect this to go anywhere in the next decade, sorta - Freeform, ulfric critical, warning: author is a flake, warning: glacial updates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:06:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23972026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Skyrim novelization; may diverge from canon.A Cyrodiilic healer finds herself in need of a new name and new life; Skyrim is supposed to be just one stop on the way. But between civil war, dragons, and the endless quest to earn enough coin to buy every ingredient in the alchemy shop, Lea might find herself staying for longer than she planned.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: I'm posting this now because I know that I might never complete it, and yet I crave validation. Please do not read if abandoned works make you cry, or if you really can't stand slow updates.   
> Formerly titled "Healer" because went to post and realized I didn't have a title.   
> Title is from English House by Fleet Foxes.

“Next, the Dark Elf.”

 _Oh, that’s me._ They must be saving the rebel king for last, for dramatic effect or something. Which just gives his followers more time for an _even more dramatic_ last-minute rescue, if you ask Lea, which no one has. Or maybe that’s part of the plan. Maybe someone _wants_ Ulfric to escape. There’s bound to be a rebel sympathizer or two even in the Imperial ranks.

“There it is again! Did you hear that?” asks the Nord legionnaire. Some sort of roar in the distance, which Lea did, in fact, hear. She doesn’t know what sort of fauna are native to Skyrim, but it didn’t sound like something she’d like to tangle with. It also didn’t sound like anything close enough to be worrying about in the middle of a damn _execution._ Let alone the execution of the “True High King of Skyrim”. This guy is easily distracted.

The captain, just as clearly, is not easily distracted at all. Pity. Lea had tentatively hoped to live long enough for the king’s rescue to come through.

“I said, _next prisoner._ ”

“To the block, prisoner. Nice and easy.”

She walks as though through sludge, slow and heavy-limbed. The chopping block glistens with fresh blood and… bits of things. Briefly, she considers running like the horse-thief had just so that she won’t have to rest her head on it. The arrows might be kinder, if not swifter.

“Your box is too small,” she says very quietly.

“What,” says the distractible one.

“The head box. It’s too small. There was only enough room for one head in there and now it’s full. You still have three more people to execute.”

“Head on the block, prisoner,” says the captain, sounding exasperated. In theory, Lea approves. In practice she is about to be killed.

“It’s bad planning,” she says. What’s the point of having a box to catch heads if hers is just going to bounce off onto the ground anyway? Maybe they usually only have one execution at a time.

When she still does not move, the captain gestures to one of the guards and she is manhandled into position. She doesn’t resist, though her mind races for anything— _anything—_ a delay, a distraction—

The boot is firm on her back; the Stormcloak’s blood icy cold against her skin. She can smell it. Her eyes close so she won’t have to watch. Lips barely moving, she whispers, “I’ve never even _been_ to Morrowind.” And yet her body will be sent there for burial, according to the legionnare, just because she happens to be dunmer. She wonders if the Brothers and Sisters in Skingraad will ever find out what happened to her. She hopes not. Divines, what an end! What a stupid, pointless end. Eyes still closed tight, she thinks of home ( _sunlight streaming through stained glass windows; murmured prayers rising among motes of dust; the scent of flax flowers and Brother Elendil’s fresh-baked bread)_ and waits for the axe to fall.

Instead, the sky roars, the ground shakes, and her eyes blink open to perhaps the least likely sight imaginable.

 _“WHAT IN OBLIVION IS THAT?!”_ someone yells, but it must be rhetorical. Even having never seen one, there’s really no mistaking a dragon for anything else.

It’s _huge,_ black, armored in what look less like scales than jagged ebony knives. Its eyes, glowing red, seem to look straight at her. Weirdly, before relief or terror, she feels a thrill of amazement at the sight. As though, _Divines, this thing is going to kill us all!_ is not as pressing a thought as _but what a way to go!_ Still pointless, maybe, but she would feel much better writing home about having been killed by a dragon than mistakenly executed as a Stormcloak rebel. Not that she could write home either way, being dead and all. It’s the principle of the matter.

Then it Shouts. **“STRUN BAH TOOR!”**

And. FIRE. Not from its mouth, which is what the stories say _ought_ to happen, but from the _sky_. (There are suddenly stormclouds and everything, but what sort of clouds produce fireballs?)

“Hey, dark elf! Get up!”

Fire, chaos, and _screams._ The real world asserts itself and Lea lurches to her feet, the moment of fragile awe passing to leave dread and horror in its place. Her mind flashes briefly to the child they’d passed on their way in—how she was relieved that someone sensible was looking out for him, that they weren’t going to let him watch. He’d been herded back inside the house. The _wooden house._

“Come on, the Gods won’t give us another chance! This way!”

The blonde Stormcloak currently yelling at her is the only one left. Apparently the rest of them were smart enough to take off when the dragon showed up, but he’d either stayed to yell or come back to yell. Yelling was involved. Top scores in compassion for strangers, this guy, and a _zero_ in self-preservation. She approves. He has the kind of stupid kindness she values in a friend. If only she could remember his name.

When he runs for the nearest stone tower, she follows. There’s a legionnaire’s body outside the door that looks like it was felled by weapons rather than dragonfire; inside, the surviving Stormcloaks have gathered. Some of them have visible burns, and one is hunched protectively over a stomach wound.

“Jarl Ulfric, what is that thing?! Could the legends be true?”

“Legends don’t burn down villages.” The king, gag removed, has a rumbly, impressive sort of voice. He probably gives great speeches, thinks Lea. Maybe that’s why they’d gagged him. Afraid that he’d speech them to death. Or seduce the guards with his rumbly wiles. Nords in general aren’t really the type to think of words as weapons; they much prefer swords and axes. But there are always exceptions.

“We can’t stay here,” says the blonde. “We need to move!”

 _Why?_ she wonders, and then the dragon busts through the wall of the tower above them roaring flames from its mouth like a _proper_ legend, answering her unvoiced question. They’re not safe here. The dragon has already taken off again, but there’s a charred body rolling down the stairs, strangled screams dying down to gurgles in its throat, and they are very much _not safe here._ “Up through the tower, let’s go!” urges blonde guy. She’s already halfway up the stairs. Her feet are sure and steady, somehow, even in the stupid floppy prisoner sandals; even with her hands still bound behind her. The way to the top of the tower is blocked by fallen stone, but the hole the dragon made is within jumping distance of the second storey of a house. Of course the house is _on fire_ , and the heavy black smoke makes it impossible to tell where it’s safe to jump _to,_ but can she really afford to be picky at this point? She breathes deep of the acrid air, runs forward, and leaps.

—And immediately, fantastically, flubs the landing. One foot catches on something and her hands can’t catch _anything,_ but she manages to twist so that she lands on her side instead of her face. Despite that, her head knocks _hard_ against a support beam but she doesn’t have time to be dazed because one of her sandals is on _fire,_ shit! She tugs it off frantically with her other foot, gasping in relief when it finally slips free. The skin around her toes is red and blistered from the heat, but not cracked or bleeding. It’s barely more than an annoyance, really—the sort of thing that would take her seconds to heal, if— _if_ —her hands weren’t literally tied, Divines curse it.

She stands gingerly, looking back the way she came. Blonde guy is nowhere to be seen. Maybe he decided the jump was too risky. She can’t wait for him; the house is on fire, and if she doesn’t leave soon the flames or the smoke will ensure that she _can’t._ She mutters a quick prayer to any gods that might happen to be listening, that they will both survive this to meet again, and puts him firmly from her mind. Through the flaming wreckage of the house, through the floorboards to the bottom level, and out what used to be the back wall, keeping an ear out for the concussive **boom** of air caught beneath dragon’s wings—though what can she do, if she hears it? Does it matter whether she sees her death coming? (She had closed her eyes, waiting for the axe to fall. She was so certain of death then. Maybe there _is_ a god looking out for her—but if so, it’s a cruel god that doesn’t much care about collateral damage.)

“Haming, get over here!” a male voice shouts.

She tumbles out into the gray daylight, trying to stifle her coughs, and the shouter reveals himself to be Distractible Legionnaire, whom she finds she is not especially glad to see. He’s standing right out in the open like an _idiot_ , shouting at—oh. Oh, there’s a child. A Nord boy, maybe seven or eight, frozen in terror in the middle of the road, his wide eyes glued to the sky.

“HAMING! Haming, you need to get over here, NOW!”

 _Just go grab him!_ She would do it, but her hands. Are. Tied. Which she _hates_ more with every passing second. But Distractible Legionnaire’s roaring voice finally seems to snap the boy out of his shock enough to tear his eyes from the sky and run as he was directed. “Thatta boy!” the legionnaire exclaims, obviously relieved as he catches the small form in his arms. “You’re doing great!”

Behind the child a man comes running. Another Nord. And behind _him_ comes the dragon.

“Look out!” Lea cries. The legionnaire looks up and goes pale beneath the soot.

“TORALD! —GODS, everyone get back!” And he grabs the boy under one arm and uses the other hand to haul her to cover with them. His grip on her bicep is bruise-tight and twists her arm in such a way that it wrenches painfully where her wrists are bound together.

 **“YOL TOOR SHUL!”** The dragon Shouts fire as they cower out of sight, unwilling audience to Torald’s dying screams. The boy—Haming—is weeping, still tucked close against the legionnaire’s side.

They stay there, hidden, until the dragon takes flight again. Then Distractible Legionnaire ushers the trembling child into the arms of the older man behind them. “Gunnar, take care of the boy. I have to find General Tullius and join the defense.” He turns to her, then, gaze flitting over the blood and burns she’s accumulated since the headsman’s block. “Still alive, prisoner? Keep close to me if you want to stay that way.” And he turns to leave, but—

“Wait,” she says.

(Maybe there is a god looking out for her, maybe not. And maybe it doesn’t care about collateral damage, this hypothetical divine power, but _she_ does. What is she, if she doesn’t care? And what would it make her, if she cared but still did nothing to help?)

“Cut me loose,” she says.

He makes an impatient gesture. “No time! Just follow me, pris—”

“I’m a _healer,_ this is what I’m _for!_ Cut my bindings and go.”

To his credit, he doesn’t waste any more time arguing. He draws a dagger from his belt and seconds later she’s free. Finally. “Gods go with you, prisoner,” he says grimly, already turning away.

“And with you,” she returns, and does not watch him go.

“Gods go with you, Hadvar,” says the old man quietly. Oh, so that’s his name. And the old man is… Gun-something, Gunvald. Gunter. He’s an old man. Bald. Gunbald.

First, she kneels beside the child. “Are you hurt?” She can see just from a cursory inspection that he’s not unscathed, and she thinks she saw a limp earlier when he was running. But he doesn’t answer, just stares at her, glassy-eyed. She wonders if he’s ever had cause to speak to a dunmer before. With the blood-red eyes, ashen skin, and Eyebrows of Permanent Scowl, she’s often had cause as a healer to bemoan her race’s appearance.

But they don’t have time for her to indulge the boy’s fear. “May I heal him?” she asks the old man, and when he gives permission she reaches out and casts Healing Hands, though the child flinches and cowers away from her. But Restoration feels pleasant, especially to children (who have often never felt it before), and it only takes a few moments for him to relax and begin to peer with less fear than curiosity at the shining white light curling out from her palms. She’s finished quickly—children are easy to heal. “Are you hurt?” she repeats, this time to the man. He shakes his head, so maybe the blood on his tunic is someone else’s. “Alright then, let’s go. Do you know the best way out of here?” He’s a native, not a Legion soldier, but the town has been wrecked so thoroughly that the normal ways of getting around won’t necessarily do the trick anymore.

“…The Keep would offer shelter,” he says wearily, “but the dragon has already demonstrated that our stone is no proof against it. I think we had best head for the gates and hope it does not pursue us.”

“I’ll follow your lead,” she agrees.

He takes her the same way Distractible Legionnaire had gone, down the street (past Torald’s body, which he carefully shields Haming from), behind one cottage and through the ruins of another, and into a broad, cobbled courtyard, on the other side of which are the city gates. There’s another corpse between them and the gate, which the old man sighs sadly at as they pass. “May your soul find safe passage to Sovngarde, my friend,” he murmurs. “Don’t look, Haming.”

At the gate, they part ways. “You’re going back in there?” the old man asks incredulously.

“I’m a healer,” she says, which even she must admit is not a very good answer. “This is where the hurt people are.” That’s a little better.

(She does not want to go back in. The forest looks cool and dark and green and safe, and Helgen looks like Oblivion come to roost. She does not want to go back in.)

The old man shakes his head and says, “Gods protect you, foolish child.” Haming still does not speak or even look at her face.

“Stay safe,” she says, as gently as she can with smoke roughening her voice. They go, and she waits, watches, listens (just in case), until the woods swallow them up.

The shouting and screaming have stopped, mostly—probably because the screamers are dead. _Or unconscious,_ she tells herself. _Or escaped already_. Just because it’s wishful thinking doesn’t mean it’s not true. She tries to stick close to shelter, skulking through what’s left of Helgen, but the fact is that most of the shelter is on fire and a good portion of the rest is rubble. She tries anyway. The dragon’s approaches are noisy, at least, so that she has a fragment of time to panic and dive for the nearest hiding place.

She checks the bodies as she finds them, even the ones that are charred beyond recognition, and leaves them behind when, inevitably, they show no signs of life. Until one does. A female legionnaire in light armor, face and neck half blackened, one eye burst and dribbling down her cheek. The other is closed, so Lea can’t see what shape it’s in. The woman might be blind, Lea vows to herself, but she’ll _live._ It’s a statement of intent, not of fact.

Lea darts out from the shadow of the wall just long enough to grab the soldier and drag her back into it. There in the relative safety, she has more time to examine her patient, not that there’s much examining needed. Magicka healing is a simple thing, really, not that Restoration specialists like to admit it—you can’t really mess things up _worse._ If you fail, the spell will just fizzle. But Lea has been able to reliably cast Healing Hands since she was twelve, and has used it thousands of times since then. She could cast it in her sleep.

The soldier is surprisingly (unfortunately) magicka resistant. She must have been exposed to a lot of foreign magicka in her time, because holding Healing Hands on her is a bit like rolling a boulder up a hill—a slippery, muddy hill. In other circumstances Lea would just bypass the resistance by giving her a healing potion, but she’s fresh out of those, so she slogs on, sweat beading on her forehead from a strain that’s entirely non-physical. Achingly slowly the charred skin starts to flake away, revealing clean pink beneath. Lea pauses for breath, flexes her stiff hands, and takes stock of her magicka reserves; over half gone, and it feels like she’s barely made headway. But the spell would have healed the wounds from most severe to least, so maybe it only _seems_ fruitless when really it’s been working beneath the surface where she can’t see. She splays her hands wide a few inches above the woman’s torso and casts again.

Healing spells are a spectacle. You can train to reduce the amount of light emitted during casting, but Lea has never bothered—although the chiming sound, which gives her a headache, she eliminated long ago. She regrets that negligence now as the air above thunders with the clap of dragon wings, and she hastily gathers her patient up in her arms and presses them both as tightly against the wall as she can manage, holding her breath.

 _Akatosh—Julianos—_ Her panicked thoughts skitter away from her so that she can’t even articulate the prayer. But if there are any Divines looking in they can probably figure out the situation for themselves.

The dragon passes overhead without spotting them, Lea shudders a sigh of relief, and the legionnaire twitches and groans in her arms.

_Shit._

“Shhh, shh! Don’t scream, please, I know it hurts but you must not make a sound!” Lea whispers urgently, quickly but gently lowering her back to the ground and immediately resuming the healing. The interim had given her magicka a little time to recover, at least.

The soldier, probably delirious, either does not hear or does not understand. Her soft whimpers of pain grow louder, closer to wails—noise they can’t afford. Lea can’t spare the magicka for a paralysis or silence spell; her Alteration magic is shitty anyway. She moves one hand, still alight with Restoration magic, to cover the woman’s mouth, murmuring reassurance all the while. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, shhhh, shhh, I’m sorry, shhh, it’s alright, shhh, you’re okay, shhh…” It’s necessary. She still hates it.

After awhile the muffled cries stop. Lea knows the feeling of healing magic sliding uselessly off of a corpse, but she looks up worriedly anyway into an open, slightly clouded (but growing clearer by the moment) brown eye. The socket of the other has already healed over. Cautiously, she lifts the hand that had been keeping the woman silent.

“Are you with me?” she asks. She hopes so. Her magicka is running dry, though the spell hasn’t faltered yet.

The soldier nods.

“You remember the dragon?”

Another jerky nod.

The glow from her hands flickers and dies. “Good,” Lea says, “because I’m out of magicka. Can you walk?”

The woman tries to speak, coughs, then rasps, “I can try.” And proceeds to climb to her feet and prove that she is able. “Yes,” she amends, only slightly unsteady. “I can walk.”

“The eye will cause you trouble until you’ve adjusted,” Lea warns. “Don’t trust your depth perception.” Her magicka is returning slowly. Only a trickle, but a steady one. “The dragon’s still around as far as I know, so keep low and don’t call attention to yourself. If you get yourself killed after all the effort I went to to save you, I will be _very_ displeased _._ ”

The legionnaire is frowning, eyeing Lea and probably noticing the obvious things—the prisoner garb, the complete lack of any method of either defense or attack—and then the destruction surrounding them. “Are you… going somewhere?” _Like that?_ she does not add.

“No, I’m going to continue searching,” says Lea. “But you ought to go. Good luck, try not t—”

“I can help,” the legionnaire blurts, and when Lea doesn’t immediately respond she continues. “You’re looking for more survivors? Two sets of eyes are better than one. Or—“ she flinches, makes an aborted motion to reach up and touch the empty socket, “—three eyes are better than two.”

She’s not wrong. “Can you heal at all?”

“No, but I cast a half-decent Detect Life spell.”

“Thank the Divines,” breathes Lea. “I can’t even cast an _in_ decent Detect Life.”

“Better to save your magicka, anyway,” says the legionnaire. Her hands flare up with the red of Alteration and her remaining eye sparks crimson in the pupil, almost immediately moving to track something that Lea cannot see. “The closest one is this way, on the other side of the wall,” she says. “Follow me.”

 _Closest_ implies that there’s more than one. Which is honestly better than Lea expected. She follows.

{} {} {}

Much, much later, when the dragon has flown off, the Legion’s reinforcements have arrived to quell the fires and help any survivors, and Lea has been officially pardoned by the general himself (more handwaved, actually, since she hadn’t been convicted of anything in the first place. But the term ‘pardoned’ doesn’t admit to the Empire’s screw-up the way ‘apologized to’ does, though that’s really what it boiled down to), she can finally stop to breathe. There’s a camp set up a few hundred yards to the south of the city walls, or what’s left of them, with enough food and tents and bedrolls for the people left homeless by the attack. The Legion came prepared.

She trudges wearily up to the nearest cookfire and is handed a steaming bowl of soup without having to ask. “Thank you,” she says, pathetically grateful. It’s the best thing she’s ever eaten and she hasn’t even taken a bite yet. She takes her bowl and retreats to the edge of the firelight, where she can sit with her back to the warmth. Then she realizes that this puts her directly facing the ruins of Helgen, and moves to the opposite side of the fire where she can watch the bustling camp instead.

She’s most of the way through her bowl (it’s apple and cabbage, which is among her least favorite vegetables, and yet still somehow the best thing she’s ever tasted) and contemplating asking for more when someone settles down beside her. It’s the one-eyed legionnaire, cradling her own bowl with the relish of someone who has nearly forgotten what it feels like to have warm fingers. (Lea does not think it counts to have been half-roasted by a dragon. That is not a kindly warmth and does not belong in the same thought as this stew, which is kindly indeed.)

Lea finishes the last of her soup and goes back to the soldier minding the pot, who is happy to refill her bowl. The legionnaire watches her return and sit back down, but still does not speak. Lea’s soup is still hot enough to burn her tongue, but she tries (and fails, and burns her tongue to boot) to take a bite anyway. Then she says, “You look like you have something on your mind,” because she thought she was too exhausted to care but all the silent staring is starting to bother her, honestly.

The legionnaire sips at her soup. “The medical tent checked me over,” she says. “They say there’s nothing wrong with me aside from the obvious.” Which would be the missing eye, Lea supposes. “I’m to tell you that you did a ‘damn fine job,’ in Healer Krys’ words.”

Magicka healing is pretty hard to mess up, but Lea will take the compliment in the spirit it was intended. “Ah, thanks,” she says. “Is he the tall angry Bosmer fellow?” She thinks she remembers him. Bosmer are almost always tall but not usually angry types.

“Krys is Argonian,” says the legionnaire, “… and a woman.”

Well, she was close. Sorta. Anyway, she’s too tired to be embarrassed. “Okay,” she says, and waits, because that can’t be all.

It’s not. “I would be dead if not for you,” says the legionnaire. (Lea knows. The Legion’s healers were a godsend, but it had taken them hours to arrive, and by then it would have been too late for the one-eyed legionnaire and for many of the others Lea treated.) “And it’s… different, than being pulled out of a hot spot by another legionnaire, or even being healed under other circumstances. You didn’t—you didn’t owe us anything. No one could have claimed that you had any duty to us, to me or the others.”

 _I did, though,_ thinks Lea, but it’s only the duty of _decency_ that any person owes another, a debt that goes so often unfulfilled that people forget it exists (or pretend to forget so they do not have to observe it), and she doesn’t think that’s the kind of duty the legionnaire means.

“I nearly watched you be executed, and I would have thought nothing more of it.” Oh. That Lea _hadn’t_ known, that this woman had been one of the soldiers in the courtyard during the execution. She’d like to say that it doesn’t matter, that it doesn’t settle sour in her belly, but it does. (She wasn’t on the damn list. She was there by accident, but they would have killed her anyway just for the sake of _simplicity._ Just to spare them having to correct a _clerical error._ And the only person who had spoken up to say ‘Hey maybe we shouldn’t do that,’ albeit halfheartedly, was Distractible Legionnaire. _How could you watch and not care? Not protest?_ ) But the woman is visibly struggling with her words, no longer staring at Lea but instead down at the half-eaten bowl of stew growing cold in her lap. Her hands grip the sides tightly, white-knuckled. “Because it was easier not to think about it. To—because I did not owe you any duty. Or didn’t think that I did.”

 _Oh, so that’s what this is. I did the decent thing and now you feel guilty because you didn’t._ But the bitterness is giving way to weary sympathy already. Lea understands. She hasn’t always chosen the decent thing either. The only reason she’s never been on the other side of this conversation is because you can’t apologize to the dead.

“I was terribly wrong,” says the legionnaire heavily, “and I’m terribly sorry. And I’m not sure how I ought to—prove that, or repay you. Or if I have the right to ask your forgiveness.”

Lea waits awhile to make sure she’s quite finished, then gives her a companionable pat on the back. “You’re forgiven. As for proof, just speak up next time you see someone about to be killed for no good reason.” She pauses, thinks it over. She is very tired, so it takes longer than it might ordinarily. “Yeah, I think that’s it.”

The legionnaire at last looks up from her soup bowl, blinking (or winking. With only one eye it’s impossible to tell which). She spends a long moment examining Lea’s expression, gauging her sincerity, before looking back down with a small, slow smile and taking another bite of the soup (which has to have gone stone cold by now). “I think I am very glad to have met you, my friend,” she says quietly. “Can I ask your name?”

Oh, good. Lea hadn’t been able to remember if they’d exchanged names yet or not and she hadn’t wanted to ask just in case they had. “You can call me Lea,” she says, then immediately second-guesses herself. How fast does word travel across the border? Has news of her bounty made it out of Bruma? It would have been smarter to give a false name. …Too late now, she supposes. At least it wasn’t her full name.

“Thank you, Lea,” says the legionnaire. “My name is Adabelle Sette. If you ever need a friend at your side or a bow to guard your back, I am at your service.”

“I could always use more friends,” says Lea. It’s more than she came to Skyrim with.

Now she just needs a pair of boots.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lea goes to Riverwood, fraternizes with Imperials and Stormcloaks alike, and invents an alias.

Skyrim dawns are bitterly cold, much like Skyrim afternoons and Skyrim nights. Lea wakes to find that a thin layer of powdery snow has accumulated on her bedroll. There is only barely enough light to see by, but the camp is stirring with activity even so. The refugees’ section, however, where Lea spent the night, is still and quiet. She’s the only one yet awake. She carefully picks her way through the bedrolls and makes her way to the edge of the camp, nodding at the sentry on her way out.

The Legion healers had brought a traveling alchemy setup and she’s itching to restock her supply of potions, but she has neither ingredients nor money to buy any, so forage it is. It’s how she got most of her ingredients in Cyrodiil, but the flora and fauna here are unfamiliar to her. It will take some trial and error before she’s as comfortable with Skyrim’s ingredients as the ones back home. It will help if she can find a teacher, or perhaps an illustrated book or two, but for now she’s left to rely on instinct, hoping that some of her hard-won alchemic knowledge will cross over. She pads softly through the trees, bare feet crunching in the fresh snow, smelling and tasting as she goes, and it doesn’t take long before she’s gathered quite a collection of magic-rich flowers and berries and fungi in the pockets of her borrowed coat. She thinks she has at least the makings of a Restore Magicka potion, although she won’t know for sure until she tests it out.

The healing tents are quiet. Quite unlike the frenetic energy of yesterday, when the ground was covered in the bodies of people suffering and dying, now there are only a handful of patients remaining, all of whom sleep the sleep of the deeply exhausted. The ones that didn’t make it are wrapped in linen and lined up on one side (rows and rows and—and the amount has grown since she left last night. And some of the bodies are so small). It’s cold enough not to have to worry about decay, but if the bodies were left outside the camp they’d be at the mercy of the wildlife.

There’s a Bosmer sitting on a log beside the alchemy station not doing anything in particular, just scowling out at the world in general disgruntlement. His eyes are bloodshot, his cheeks hollowed; she wonders if he slept at all. “Have you slept at all?”

The Bosmer grunts.

“Mind if I use the alchemy station?” she asks, undeterred.

He grunts again, which she takes as permission.

Her instincts weren’t off—she does, in fact, have the makings of a magic restoration potion, between the red berries and some of the wildflowers. She can feel the magic activate as she uses the mortar and pestle to grind the ingredients into paste, an effective (if weak) potion on its own, but she takes the time to distill and refine the mixture to make a stronger brew. About an hour later she’s left with four decently strong magicka potions and a better idea of the other ingredients’ alchemical properties, though she hasn’t managed to make anything useful out of them. She stashes the bottles in the pockets of her coat, thinking that a pack is next on her list of things to acquire, after boots. She’s accustomed to living on the road, but some things are difficult to make do without.

The remainder of the camp’s occupants are mostly awake and eating breakfast by now, but the Bosmer has fallen asleep sitting up, listing back against the fabric of the tent behind him. The other healers don’t pay him any mind, so it must not be too uncommon of an occurrence. There are only about half-a-dozen, though she remembers it being positively crowded last night (they had probably recruited anyone from the general forces who had any sort of healing ability), and none of them are Nords, in contrast to the majority of the soldiers. Nords tend to hold a dim view of mages, though, so she supposes the disparity makes sense.

The sole Argonian, who is apparently female (Lea can never tell until she hears them speak, and sometimes not even then), stops her before she can leave, some tentative idea of searching out a supply officer on her mind. “Healer,” serves as the lizard-woman’s greeting. It does not seem to bother her that she doesn’t know Lea’s name, and she doesn’t ask for it. “I am glad to see you here, as it saves me having to seek you out.”

“Did you need me for something?” Lea wonders, puzzled.

“Not exactly,” says the other woman. “I will be straightforward—I am hoping to recruit you. You do good work, and we need healers.”

“Ah,” says Lea, trying not to let her instinctive reaction show on her face. Join the Legion, huh? Moreover, join the Legion as a _healer,_ become known (as she surely would) as one of the few survivors of the attack on Helgen—after she’d already given Adabelle her real name, or part of it. People gossiped, and the first dragon to be seen in centuries was an _interesting_ story, to put it mildly. It sounded like the opposite of the invisibility she’d come to Skyrim to achieve. Ideally she would change her name, her appearance, and distance herself from her role as Healer as much as possible, though the thought of laying down such an essential part of herself pained her.

“I appreciate the offer, but I’m afraid I can’t take you up on it at the moment,” she says, smiling. “Things to do, you know.”

The Argonian doesn’t seem offended—or, more importantly, suspicious. “Of course; I understand. Should you ever change your mind I would be happy to put in a recommendation for you.”

“Thank you.” She really needs to come up with a false name. Best to end this conversation quickly before she’s asked for one. A name, that is, not a false one. “Is there a supply officer in camp? I’m hoping to trade for a few things. Shoes, for one.” She doesn’t have much to her name that’s worth trading, but she knows her alchemy is good. The potions should be enough to get her what she needs, and if not she can always make more.

It isn’t the conversation-closer she meant for it to be. Rather than directing her to the supply officer, the Argonian tuts at her bare feet and sets about outfitting Lea herself, with the help of the other healers. She’s donated a set of boots from one of the Bretons, legwarmers from the Argonian, a warm woolen tunic from an Imperial woman, and a knife, belt, and sheath from the Bosmer, who has yet to wake.

“Won’t he… mind?” she asks, eyeing him warily. He’s frowning even in his sleep.

“Oh, not at all,” assures one of the Bretons, all wide-eyed innocence. “Faldras has quite the soft spot for ladies in distress.” Lea gets the feeling from the poorly hidden smiles at that comment that there’s a joke being made, but not at her expense, she doesn’t think. So she buckles on the dagger (steel, well cared for, not patterned with the Imperial dragon motif that the Legion seems so fond of slapping onto everything), thanks them while trying and failing to remember any of their names, and then has to head off and find the supply officer anyway because while that was a good start, she still doesn’t have a pack. First she detours back to where she spent the night to break fast with the Helgenites and unobtrusively purloin a bedroll, which probably won’t be missed (or begrudged if it is).

The supply officer is a Nord man, with the tall, broad frame and fair features typical of his people. His light Legion-issued armor leaves his arms bare but he seems completely unbothered by the cold, which would mark him as a Skyrim native even if his appearance didn’t. In return for two of her magicka potions she acquires from him a pack, a map, some empty potion bottles, a couple spare sets of underwear, and a pair of rather worn gauntlets which he throws in for free, teasing that her fingers are positively _blue_ from cold. (“If they _stop_ being blue then I’ll start worrying,” she says, laughing.) Most of the armor he has in stock is either beyond her current means or part of the Legion uniform.

By the time she’s fully kitted and ready to go, it’s late morning. The camp is nearly deserted, most of the soldiers and villagers having gone into Helgen now that the fires have died out to sift through the wreckage and recover what they can, whether belongings or bodies. Adabelle finds her as she’s trying (successfully) to persuade one of the cooks to send her on her way with some provisions. Free food! Courtesy of the Empire!

“Lea? I’m told you are leaving; may I ask a favor of you?”

Lea turns, round loaf of bread in one hand and three apples clutched tenuously in the other. “Er, hello, yes—hold on.” She stashes them in the pack resting at her feet, then does the same with the two small wheels of cheese pressed onto her. She thanks the Orsimer cook profusely before turning her full attention to the one-eyed legionnaire, who at some point since the previous night has tied a strip of reddish cloth across the empty socket in lieu of a proper eyepatch. “Alright, what do you need?”

Adabelle hesitates, looking rather as though she would prefer not to be asking what she’s about to ask. “It’s an unpleasant task. But it should be on your way, assuming you’re passing through Riverwood?” She waits for Lea’s nod—Riverwood is barely a stone’s throw away according to her new map, and the road to Whiterun leads through it—before continuing. “One of the legionnaires missing in action, Hadvar, has family living there. An uncle, I believe. He’s… there’s every chance that he’s dead, but we haven’t identified his body yet. And if he managed to escape…”

“He might have gone to his family,” Lea nods in understanding. “You want me to check?” That doesn’t sound so bad.

“Yes. But if he’s not there, you’ll be the bearer of very bad news.”

“I understand,” says Lea. “How should I get word back to you?” She doesn’t relish the prospect, but it will hardly be the first time she’s had to break the news of a loved one’s death. She’s not even the one responsible this time.

“If you do find Hadvar you can just tell him to report in here at the camp,” says the legionnaire. “If not, I’m sending you with some coin to hire a courier. You can keep it if it’s not needed, of course.”

She hands Lea a purse that is clearly too heavy to be just courier pay, but Lea tucks it away without a word. She’s hardly in a position to turn down the coin. (She’s never been in a position to turn down coin and she never will be. She doesn’t believe that such a position exists.)

“I suppose I’m off to Riverwood, then,” she says, slinging her pack back up over her shoulders.

Adabelle salutes her with a fist over her heart and bows. “Thank you, my friend. Divines watch over you.”

{} {} {}

“Hadvar,” Lea repeats under her breath, trailing over to the roadside to gather some white-speckled mushrooms. “Hadvar. Hadvar. Hadvar. Hadvar.” She’s going to remember this name even if it kills her. “Hadvar.” Even if she has to spend the entire walk to Riverwood muttering to herself like a crazy person. “Hadvar. Hadvar.” Maybe she can make up a song or something.

“ _Legionnaire, tall and fair,_  
Dragon came; ye fled the flame,  
Haaaad-var, you’re a… baaaad-var—no, that’s terrible. Uh.” _What’s this?_ Out of the trees to the left of the road, just before it curves right to run alongside the river that presumably gives Riverwood its name, is a trio of standing stones about the same size as Lea arranged in a triangle. As she gets closer, she can see that each of them has a circular hole near the top and a carving etched into the base.

“Constellations,” she mutters aloud, recognizing the stylized figures of the Warrior, Thief, and Wizard respectively. Supposedly the sign you’re born under influences your skills, your personality, and even your luck, but Lea doesn’t know what sign she was born to so she’s never given the matter much thought. When she touches the Wizard stone, brushing moss out of the cracks, it tingles and shimmers under her hand, making her draw back in surprise. Maybe they’re not just decorative statuary? That felt like an enchantment. An old, _old_ enchantment. The same thing happens when she touches the other two stones, but not when she touches the same one twice in a row. It doesn’t seem to _do_ anything though, apart from the lightshow, so with one final prod at the Warrior stone, which is closest, she continues on her way.

It’s not until the village gate is in sight that she realizes, with a sensation of creeping dread, that despite her best intentions she’s forgotten the possibly-dead legionnaire’s name. _Shit._ She can’t just go in there asking if anyone has family in the Legion! What if there’s more than one? _Gods,_ why didn’t she write it down? Aside from the fact that she hadn’t had anything to write with.

_Wait. Legionnaire, mmm hmm hmm… something-something bad… badvar-HADVAR! That was it!_

She can’t believe Hadvar the Badvar just saved her bacon.

“Hadvar,” she says firmly, and marches into Riverwood.

The first person she sees, an elderly Nord woman glaring suspiciously at the sky from the rocking chair in front of her house, she approaches, leaning over the porch railing with a wave to catch her attention.

“Good afternoon! I’m in town to deliver a message, do you think you could help point me toward the recipient?”

The scowl is transferred to her and, in fact, seems to grow even deeper. After eyeing Lea for a long moment, the woman says, “Bah. Ask, elf. Can’t promise to answer.”

A little taken aback, Lea smiles wider. She resolves to end the conversation as quickly as possible. “I’m looking for the family of a man named Hadvar?”

“Bah!” says the woman again. “Figures they’d be mixed up with your lot.”

When the woman doesn’t immediately continue, Lea asks again, very pleasantly, “Do you know where I can find them?” Adds as incentive, “I don’t plan on staying long.” _Come on, don’t you want me out of here quickly?_

It seems to work. “That’s Alvor’s forge,” the Nord says, indicating a covered area several houses down. “It’s attached to the house. You’re bound to find him or Sigrid in one or the other.”

“Thank you very much,” says Lea. _You miserable old hag._

The orange glow of the forge and rhythmic ringing of metal tells her in advance that the place is occupied. “Alvor,” she whispers to herself at the bottom of the porch steps. “Sigrid. Hadvar the Badvar.” She’s got this.

She knocks on the thick wooden post beside the steps, announcing her presence. “Hello? I’m looking for Alvor?” Probably the bearded Nord currently working the forge is him, but best not to assume. He might just have minions.

The man looks up, lays down his hammer, and douses the red-hot whatever he’s working on in the water trough beside the fire. “You’ve found him,” he says, taking off his protective gloves and setting them down on the nearby workbench. “What do you want?” It could easily have come across as rude, but she gets the feeling he’s merely direct.

Alvor is a great bear of a man, even for a Nord. Lea, who is so accustomed to being smaller than everyone that she rarely takes note of such things anymore, cannot help but feel dwarfed next to him. His arms are covered in tiny little burn scars from his work.

“I came from Helgen,” she says, but Alvor interrupts before she can continue.

“Helgen!” he says. “There were other survivors, then?”

“So Hadvar _did_ come here,” Lea says, relieved.

“Yes,” says Alvor. “I take it you’re here for him. He’s in the house, follow me.”

That was easy.

Walking into the house, which is immaculately kept and decorated in what seems to be the typical Nord style—that is, with lots of animal furs and heads mounted on the walls—Lea is abruptly reminded of how scruffy she must look. Alvor is also sweaty and covered in soot, though, so maybe she fits in here after all. Then, leaning to peer around Alvor’s broad back, she sees a unexpectedly familiar figure standing beside the fireplace.

“You!” she exclaims at the same time as Alvor says, “Hadvar!”

Distractible Legionnaire—whose name is apparently Hadvar—who had turned to face them when they walked in, is clearly just as surprised to see her.

“Prisoner.” (And yeah, she definitely needs to come up with an alias to give out.) “You’re alive.” He sounds… glad, if tired. And gods, does he look tired. His face, though clean, is haggard and pale, and he is still (or again?) wearing his Legion uniform. In the relative safety of his uncle’s home his sword remains buckled to his waist, close at hand. And despite the weariness writ in every line of his body, he wasn’t sitting when they came in. Perhaps he spent the night sleepless, wondering if when the dragon finished with Helgen it would target Riverwood next. She wonders belatedly how _she_ managed to sleep so soundly while knowing it was still out there. It felt safer there, somehow—as though that old adage about lightning never striking the same place twice also applied to dragon attacks.

Alvor, glancing between them with a small furrow in his brow, goes to stand with Hadvar.

“You too, looks like,” says Lea, feeling a little sorry about being cross at him when he’s so obviously relieved to see her. He had been the only one to protest her execution, but it had been a token protest at best, so she’d thought—well. Perhaps she had judged him too harshly. “I’m supposed to tell you to report to the Legion camp outside Helgen.”

“Legion camp?” he echoes softly.

There’s a small, stifled noise from the direction of the stairwell leading down on the far side of the house, and when she glances over, Haming is staring back at her. He doesn’t look very rested either, she notes with displeasure, and tries to keep her eyebrows from doing The Thing for the sake of not scaring the poor kid. Nightmares, probably. He’s clearly bathed and wearing clean, fresh clothing, unlike Hadvar, so that’s something.

She waves a little, trying to soften her expression enough to mitigate the effect of the Eyebrows of Permanent Scowl, and turns back to Hadvar. No need to remind the boy of the circumstances of last time he saw her. “Legion camp,” she repeats. “General Tullius called a retreat into the keep once it was obvious that attacking the dragon wasn’t, er, doing anything.” Out of the corner of her eye she sees Haming creep silently across the room until he’s standing between Hadvar and Alvor, slightly behind them, fingers tangling in Hadvar’s belt. “But after the dragon flew off they sent for—relief, reinforcements, whatever. We saved everybody that could still be saved. You were missing from the count, but somebody figured you might be here—Adabelle, she made it too—and it was on my way, so.” She shrugs.

Hadvar’s body language shifts slightly, no longer so guarded; he sighs, runs a weary hand over his eyes. “This is good news,” he says, but like he’s trying to convince himself. “Survivors?”

She hesitates, gaze drifting down to rest on Haming, who is listening intently, leaning into Hadvar’s side even though it can’t be comfortable with all the armor in the way. But he deserves to know. It might even bring him some peace of mind, not having to wonder.

“I treated most of them at some point, but I don’t know their names. I could… describe them to you?”

Alvor respectfully excuses himself from the painful conversation. One by one they manage to put a name to most of the villagers and soldiers she remembers treating—although sometimes the things she remembers aren’t helpful identifiers. “Blonde Nord,” for instance, is useless since it applies to nearly everybody. Haming finally speaks up for the first time in her hearing to ask after another boy, his friend, and she has to tell him regretfully that neither the name or description sound familiar. He goes quiet again after that, shrinking in on himself, but stays to hear the rest.

When at last they have exhausted her limited knowledge, Hadvar voices his intent to report in as asked and verify the survivors himself.

“Don’t leave!” blurts Haming, voice going high with panic. Without pause, “Take me with you!” as though they mean the same thing. She supposes if you add the unvoiced _me_ to _don’t leave,_ they do. It feels intrusive to look at the emotion raw on his face, so she studiously examines the buckles on her boots instead.

“There, now, cub,” says Hadvar gently, kneeling beside the boy. “It’s not so far, and I’ll return with news. And we can’t leave old Gunnar here all by himself, can we?”

“He could come too,” mumbles Haming, but he sounds defeated. She doesn’t want him to sound defeated. He’s had enough defeat for a lifetime. Let him win something. _Let him rise from this,_ she prays—to Talos, this time, which always feels a little dangerous even only inside her head. With his worship forbidden as part of the terms of the Empire’s truce with the Thalmor, he’s bound to have fewer supplicants competing for his attention, right? Maybe he’ll have time to look after one small Nord boy.

The front door opens and a girl walks in, a few years older and much taller and broader than Haming, but stops short at the sight of their gathering. “Who’re you?” she demands boldly of Lea.

Hadvar chuckles, standing. “Dorthe, this is—“ And he stops, consternation writ clear across his face. “All this time,” he says to Lea, “and I never got your name.”

Lea, who saw this coming and did nothing, fumbles. “It’s, ah, Leah.”

“Aleah?” asks Hadvar.

“Yes! Yes, that’s my name.” Leah is just her nickname with an ‘ah’ at the end. Aleah has an ‘ah’ at the beginning _and_ at the end, which is clearly superior.

Despite how horribly awkward it sounded to her own ears, Hadvar seems to find no issue with the exchange. “Dorthe,” he begins again, “this is Aleah, a guest. She brings news from Helgen. Aleah, this is Dorthe, my cousin.”

“Is that _really_ your name?” asks Dorthe, who seems to be sharper than her cousin.

“All my life,” lies Lea. “Is Dorthe really _your_ name?”

“Everyone says so,” says Dorthe, but she sounds pleased so Lea must have passed the test. Whatever it was. “Was there really a dragon? Was it _huge?_ Hadvar won’t tell me and I’m not allowed to ask Haming.”

Said boy, who was already looking sick and miserable after the fraught conversation, flinches at the mention of the dragon. Lea seizes the opportunity to give him some privacy to talk to Hadvar. “Why don’t we go out to your father’s forge and I’ll tell you about it?”

“Really? Okay!”

Dorthe grabs her hand, and Lea allows herself to be dragged along at excited-child pace. At the forge, Alvor is back to work. The mysterious lump of something he was working on before is now recognizably a sword; he’s hunched over a grindstone when Dorthe and Lea come bursting in. It’s terribly loud, but Dorthe doesn’t pay any mind, and in any case he lets the wheel (and therefore the obnoxious screeching) come to a stop after a moment, craning his head around to look at them.

“Papa! Aleah is going to tell us about the dragon!” Dorthe informs him with breathless excitement.

“Is she now,” says Alvor, turning in his seat to face the door. There’s nothing forbidding in his tone, so Lea takes that as a go-ahead.

Dorthe bounces over to Alvor and stands beside him, resting her chin on his broad shoulder. “Okay, I’m ready! I want to know _everything._ ”

Leah tries to think of how she would tell this if it was a story and not something that had actually happened to her. If it it was an adventure instead of a nightmare.

“It _was_ big,” she says finally, answering the girl’s original question. “Big as a house, and black as night. With… with glowing red eyes, like coals. When it first landed on the roof of the tower it shook the whole ground, so that anybody standing up stumbled.” She doesn’t mention that she was not one of those people. “And you know how the stories say that dragons breathe fire from their mouths?”

Dorthe nods, eyes huge.

“It didn’t do that at first.”

She waits. Sure enough, Dorthe pipes up, “So what did it do? Did it breathe ice?” She gasps. “Or lightning!”

“No,” says Lea. “It SHOUTED.” She’s surprised to find that she remembers the words, and repeats them in a growly dragon-voice. “Strun Bah Toor! And dark clouds gathered in the sky… and it started raining _fire._ ”

Alvor makes a noise, reaching up one hand to stroke his daughter’s hair; Lea regrets for a moment. She’d worried about Dorthe but forgotten to consider Alvor, who’s lived a stone’s throw from Helgen all his life and probably has friends there. Had friends there.

“So we had to run and hide, but there were fires everywhere so it was tricky,” she says. “But eventually the dragon flew away and we were safe again.” Sort of.

“Where did it go?” asks Dorthe.

Towards Riverwood, but Lea’s not going to _say_ that. “I don’t know. Dragons like high places, right? What’s the tallest mountain in Skyrim?”

“The Throat of The World!” Dorthe answers confidently. “I can see it when I go with Papa to Whiterun sometimes. But the top is always covered up with clouds.”

“Maybe the dragon is there, hiding in the clouds,” Lea suggests.

“But it could come back,” says Dorthe, sounding a little less enthused than before.

“Alright,” says Alvor abruptly, “I think that’s enough talk of dragons for today. Dorthe, tell – Aleah, was it? – tell her thank you.”

“Thank you, Aleah,” Dorthe repeats dutifully, still a bit subdued.

Alvor scratches at his beard. “You know, we’re about out of hobnails after we sent that last shipment to the Legion. Know anyone that could help me make some more?”

She perks up immediately. “Really, Papa? Right now?”

“Right now,” says Alvor, laying aside the sword he was working on.

It’s late afternoon, the sun slanting golden onto Riverwood’s thatched roofs, and Lea is famished, never having gotten around to a midday meal. She wonders if Riverwood has someplace she can purchase a hot meal.

“Are you planning on staying the night here, or pushing on to Whiterun?” Alvor asks as Dorthe busily sets about getting the forge hot again.

“I don’t know yet,” she says. “I suppose it depends on how late it is when I’m done running errands. Probably best not to travel in the dark, given I’m so new to Skyrim; I don’t even know yet what I’d be risking.”

“Nothing good,” says Alvor. “Wolves and bears and worse things. And the tundra around Whiterun has giants.”

“Giants!”

Alvor shrugs. “They mostly don’t bother you if you don’t bother them. I’d worry more about the sabertooth cats.”

“Is that like a mountain lion?” Lea asks.

“But with fangs like sabers!” chimes in Dorthe, miming with her index fingers curled at the edges of her mouth. “Grrrr!”

“Don’t do that, you’re scaring me!” says Lea, making her eyes wide and backing up a step. Dorthe giggles.

 _“I’m_ not scary,” she says.

Alvor ruffles her hair. “Scarier than any sabertooth cat.” To Lea, he says, “I’d offer you a place to sleep but between Hadvar, Gunnar, and the boy we’re full up. Still, if there’s anything else we can help you with please let us know. Food, supplies… I think we have a few potions laying around. Any friend of Hadvar’s is a friend of mine.”

Lea wouldn’t call them _friends_ exactly, but who is she to turn down free stuff?

“I could do with a meal,” she admits. “And…” how to phrase this in a way that isn’t _‘the Legion took all my stuff when they arrested me’_ , “I came into Skyrim without much of anything. All my gear is just what I got at the camp before coming here, so any supplies you can offer would be appreciated.”

“Of course,” says Alvor. “I’ll talk to Sigrid. Come back here before you leave town and we’ll have things gathered together for you.”

“Thank you,” Lea says, warmed by his kindness.

As she leaves (just across the street, where there is a general goods store), she hears Dorthe ask, “Can I make her a sword?” and Alvor’s patient, “No, Dorthe. No swords yet.”

She’s smiling as she pushes open the door to the general store and walks straight into an argument.

“Well one of us has to do something!” It’s a woman speaking—or a girl, really, still soft-cheeked and glowing with youth (and with ire) for all she has the figure of a woman.

“I said _no_! No adventures, no theatrics, no thief-chasing!” The second speaker, a man, looks older. He’s leaning forward over the counter, scowling at the girl on the other side. They’re both dark-eyed and –haired, with olive-toned skin. Not Nord, then; Imperial. Neither of them seem to have heard her enter, which is understandable given the amount of noise they’re making.

“Well what are _you_ going to do then, huh? Let’s hear it!”

Lea clears her throat loudly.

It’s almost comical how they both freeze. After the initial surprise the girl ducks her head and flushes, embarrassed, while the man straightens and clears his throat as though there are any illusions of professionalism left to salvage.

“Sorry you had to hear that,” he says. “Welcome to Riverwood Trader, I’m Lucan Valerius and this is my sister, Camilla. I don’t know what you heard, but…” he falters, glancing around. The shop does look a little worse for wear, with more shelves than not empty with their contents swept haphazardly onto the floor, sometimes shattered. “… we’re still open,” finishes the Imperial weakly.

“What happened?” asks Lea, indicating the mess.

“We, ah, we had a bit of a… break-in. But we still have plenty to sell! Robbers were only after one thing. An ornament, solid gold, in the shape of a dragon’s claw.”

Which sounds very impressive, but not the sort of thing that will be easy to sell. Especially if word gets out that the expensive, unique item was stolen. Most merchants won’t touch stolen goods, and even the less picky ones might hesitate at something so recognizable. At a glance she can see several items in the shop that are almost completely unidentifiable but could be easily sold for a hefty profit. Some very expensive potions, for one, and a few that might have been expensive once before they shattered on the floor.

“And that’s _all_ they took?” It’s very strange, if true. If you’re going to break into a place to steal something you might as well go the whole nine yards. She’s almost offended by the inefficiency. “ _Why?_ ”

“Gods know,” shrugs Lucan, “but it’s the only thing missing. Suppose we’re lucky.”

“I suppose,” agrees Lea. “I don’t suppose you have any alchemy books? Or herbology, I should say. Illustrated would be particularly helpful.”

“I think I have something…” Lucan mutters, looking relieved at the subject change. He turns from the counter to face the wreck of his stock and hesitates.

“The chest in the corner, underneath that ugly orange rug,” Camilla says sullenly from where she’s sitting at a table in the main area.

“Right! Thank you,” he says, going to the chest, setting aside the rug (which _is_ rather ugly), and digging through its contents until he comes up with a hefty leather-bound book with gold-embossed edges. It looks fancy. Maybe too fancy, she thinks worriedly. How much gold was in that purse from Adabelle, anyway?

But it’s _exactly_ what she needs, when he shows it to her. _Herbalist’s Guide to Skyrim_ contains illustrations—colored, even!—of useful potions ingredients, both herbal and not (despite the title), with their names, where they can be found, and some of their alchemic properties. She pages through and quickly finds some of the plants she’s already encountered. The abundant red berries, for instance, are called snowberries.

“How much?” Lea asks at last, trying not to give away how badly she wants it. She doesn’t really want to get it out and count in front of them, but judging by weight alone the coinpurse probably has at least fifty gold, so if she can haggle him below that—

“Eighty gold,” says the shopkeep.

She scoffs. “And _how_ long was it moldering in that chest before I got here? Face it, the thing is practically unsaleable. Thirty-five gold.”

And they haggle, which has never been her favorite thing to do but that doesn’t mean she’s _bad_ at it. She still only manages to wrangle him down to sixty-five gold, thinking as she pulls her purse out that it’s going to be embarrassing if she doesn’t have enough. Maybe she could offer to help clean up the store, make up the difference with labor?

Luckily that turns out not to be necessary. She pays for the book and still has a good ten gold to spare. _Bless you, Adabelle._ It might even be enough to get a room at the inn. She hopes so, because it’s getting late enough that if she eats dinner with Alvor’s family (which she intends to; dear Divines is she hungry) there won’t be time to make it over the mountain to Whiterun before nightfall.

She leaves Riverwood Trader, blinking as her eyes adjust to the outside light, and looks about. Riverwood is small; tiny, really. She’s surprised it can support the Valerius’ shop. Maybe they get a lot of through traffic. But it means she doesn’t have to hunt for the inn; she only has to glance up the street to spot it.

 _The Sleeping Giant,_ declares the sign as she gets closer, with an illustration to match. She’s never seen a giant, but the picture just looks like a very hairy man. Hmm. Theory: Nords are just runty giants.

The first thing Lea spots when she walks in, besides the massive firepit in the center of the room, is an alchemy table. A _proper_ one, not the tiny travel version she’d had to make do with in camp. And her pack is filled with freshly-gathered ingredients which her fancy new book should tell her how to use. She’s practically itching to get to work—but first, the niceties. In a public space like this it’s probably free to use, but it’s polite to ask anyway. She heads toward the counter at the far end of the room, where a bored-looking Nord man with braided brown hair is lazily wiping a cleaning cloth over the surface.

But she’s hardly made it two steps before a voice says, “Hey! Dark elf!”

There are not likely to be any other Dunmer around here, so she turns. And it’s blonde guy! Stormcloak guy! The one with no sense of self-preservation. He’s not wearing his Stormcloak armor, which is probably wise, and he looks much better than last time she saw him—when they were both prisoners.

“You made it!” Lea says, delighted. Which probably means the Stormcloak king is also still alive and kicking. She hasn’t decided yet whether she thinks that’s a good thing.

On one hand, war is awful, chaotic, and never restricts its harm to combatants. Lea should know; she lived through one. On the other, the Thalmor are assholes, The White-Gold Concordat and its Talos-worship ban is horseshit, and she can wholeheartedly sympathize with wanting to kick them both out of your country, even if it also means fighting the Empire—even if it means fighting your neighbors, your friends; your families. But she has to believe that the alliance isn’t permanent; that the Empire is only making nice with the Thalmor until they’ve recovered enough strength to throw off their yoke. She has to believe it. And if her fears whisper of how easy it is to become complacent, to always say _tomorrow, we will begin the fight again tomorrow—_ she must not listen. Because if the Empire is not against the Thalmor after all, the future looks very bleak indeed.

“Can’t say I ever expected to see you again,” says the Stormcloak, grinning, and she is snapped out of her thoughts.

“Nor I you. What are you doing in Riverwood? Shouldn’t you be with, um,” she glances around, lowers her voice but keeps the tone conversational, “Ulfric?”

His cheerful expression subsides into a grimace. “Got separated,” he admits. “I don’t know for sure where the rest of them ended up, though I’m sure Ulfric got out alright; if anyone can handle a dragon it’s him. I’m just stopping here to rest up and resupply before I head back to Windhelm. Staying with my sister.”

“Your sister lives here?” Lea asks in surprise. Then, when she follows the thought to its logical conclusion, “Do you know Hadvar?”

“ _Hadvar,”_ the man repeats in disgust, which she supposes answers her question. “Yes, I know him. We both grew up here.”

So they grew up together and now they’re on opposite sides of the war. Ouch.

“He’s here too,” she tells him. Wait. She hasn’t met Alvor’s wife yet. What if Hadvar’s aunt and Ralof’s sister are the _same person_? … But no. Alvor would have said if they had another person crowding into their house, so at least that drama isn’t an issue. In the spirit of honesty, she adds, “I’m eating dinner at his uncle’s house.”

The Stormcloak nods a bit awkwardly. “Alvor’s a good man. Good blacksmith.” He hesitates as though about to add something, but in the end leaves it at that. “I take it the Empire’s not planning on executing you anymore, then? I should be so lucky.”

She snorts bitterly. “I’d say they took me off the list, but I was never _on_ it. That should never have happened.”

“That’s the Empire for you,” he says. Lea would like to disagree, blame the captain who made the call, but the rest of them had stood by. _General Tullius_ , the commander of the Legion troops in Skyrim, had stood by, and he certainly didn’t have the excuse of not wanting to defy a superior officer.

In the end she just says, “I can’t say it’s endeared me to them,” which is true enough. She takes a rather dim view of people trying to kill her.

“Can’t imagine why,” he says. “What’s your name, anyway? I can’t just keep calling you ‘elf’.”

“I’m Aleah,” she says, the alias rolling off her lips smoothly this time, “though in a pinch I will also respond to ‘elf’.” She bows. “Very pleased to meet you, sir.”

“How courtly,” he says, grinning. “My name is Ralof, and there! Now we’ve met.”

“Officially,” Lea agrees, wishing she had somewhere to write down his name. Next purchase, once she makes some money: journal.

He tells her to track him down if she’s ever in Windhelm, but admits that the likelihood that he’ll actually _be_ there is close to nil. Storming with cloaks keeps you busy, apparently.

“Do you write your sister?” she asks.

“Eh. Not as much as she would like,” he admits. “But if Gerdur had her druthers I’d spend all may pay on ink and couriers… so that’s not saying much.”

“Then I can ask her when I’m headed that way if you’re even alive to visit.” She says it in a joking tone, but it’s really… not. War and death, hand in hand.

“Hmm,” he says. “And how will I keep tabs on you, then?”

“Oh, that will be easy,” she says. “Just listen to the gossip mill for when tales of my great deeds begin spreading. First a dragon, next… giants!”

“Daedra,” suggests Ralof.

“Why not a Daedric Prince? If I’m setting my sights high.”

She says farewell, off to secure herself a room for the night and permission to use the alchemy table, with the pleasant thought that she has at least two friends in Skyrim now. A Stormcloak and an Imperial soldier, no less.

As she flips through _Herbalist’s Guide to Skyrim,_ comparing the illustrations to the plants in her pack, she worries and prays for them both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might have to edit this later to adjust time/distances, because in-game Skyrim is way too tiny.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> Unsolicited criticism is bad, folks, so this is me soliciting. Would love to hear your thoughts! But kindly, please. :)


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